1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automatic test equipment for testing integrated circuits and other components, and, in particular, to a technique for allowing a computer to assign the hardware addresses of circuits being controlled by the computer. The invention is of primary importance in the field of automatic test equipment in which numerous identical resources must be allocated, controlled, and frequently supplied with identical data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In conventional automatic test equipment for the testing of integrated circuits or other components, it is frequently necessary for a central host computer which controls the entire test apparatus to communicate with numerous peripheral units. Such peripheral units include pin electronic circuits, timing generators, digital to analog converters, and other units. In the prior art, the test system computer would communicate with each peripheral by, for example, looking up the address of the desired peripheral in a table, then specifying that address together with data or an instruction to be transmitted to the addressed peripheral. The process is then repeated for each subsequent unit, regardless of the number of units which are to be supplied with the same data or instruction. Such systems present a substantial disadvantage in the manufacture of automatic test equipment because the same information is frequently transmitted to groups of units.